| The present experiment sought to determine whether principles derived from theory and research in social comparison could predict young adults' reactions to considering their risk for sexually-transmitted diseases. Results suggest that people who consider factors that increase their chances of contracting sexually-transmitted diseases feel more vulnerable to these diseases than do people who don't. These feelings of vulnerability may motivate subsequent defensive reactions, especially among persons with high self-esteem.;Persons with high but not low self-esteem who considered their risk for sexually-transmitted diseases provided more favorable ratings of themselves on the dimension of pregnancy prevention and on a general personality index than did persons who did not consider their risk. Self-enhancement on personality ratings was associated with greater perceptions of unique invulnerability to sexually-transmitted diseases.;Persons with high self-esteem who considered their risk also selected significantly riskier targets with whom to socially compare than did those who did not consider their risk. When persons with high self-esteem who considered their risk were exposed to information about a sexually risky peer, they provided higher estimates of the typical peer's vulnerability to sexually-transmitted diseases than did persons with high self-esteem who considered their risk but who were not exposed to such information. This increase in the perception of peers' vulnerability facilitated a larger perception of unique invulnerability to sexually-transmitted diseases.;Finally, persons who considered their risk-increasing behaviors perceived sexually-transmitted diseases to be less unpleasant than did persons with high self-esteem who were not asked to consider their risk.;Persons with low self-esteem did not show significant self-enhancement, distancing, alteration in target choice, or differences in perceptions of vulnerability or unpleasantness as a function of risk consideration or exposure to a risky peer target. |
